Ghosts from Our Past: Both Literally and Figuratively: The Study of the Paranormal (Three Rivers Press)

Ghosts from Our Past: Both Literally and Figuratively: The Study of the Paranormal is a book released by Three Rivers Press. It is authored by Andrew Shaffer. However, like Tobin's Spirit Guide it has author credits of Erin Gilbert and Abby L. Yates, characters from the Ghostbusters 2016 film. It is listed having 224 pages.

Description[]

As seen in the Sony Pictures 2016 film Ghostbusters, the ultimate guide to identifying, understanding, and engaging with any paranormal activity that plagues you Years before they made headlines with the Ghostbusters, Erin Gilbert and Abby L. Yates, published the groundbreaking study of the paranormal, Ghosts from Our Past. This criminally underappreciated book is now back in print, revised and somewhat updated for the new century. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Whether you’re a believer or a skeptic, you’ll find the information you’re seeking right here in this extraordinary book, including: · The frightening childhood experiences that inspired Erin and Abby’s lifelong passion for the paranormal; · The history and science behind ghosts and other supernatural entities; · An illustrated guide to Class I through Class VII ghosts; · Helpful sidebars like Is It a Ghost? A Handy Quiz, Ectoplasm Cleanup Tips, and more. With this official Ghostbusters guide in hand, you’ll be prepared for almost any spirit, spook, or spectre that comes your way. For the rest, you know who to call.

Versions[]

Paperback
- Available: United States of America and Canada
- MSRP $15
Hardcover
- Available: United Kingdom
  - RRP £9.99
- Available: Australia and New Zealand
  - RRP $30
Ebook
- Available: United States of America and Canada
- MSRP $9.99
Downloadable Audiobook (329 Minutes)
- Available: United States of America
- MSRP $15

Development[]

On March 5, 2016, Andrew Shaffer hinted the history of the Rhine Research Center, a parapsychology research unit founded by Joseph Banks Rhine, will be explored in the book. ^[2]

On March 10, 2016, it was revealed there will be chapters from Jillian Holtzmann and Patty Tolan, too. And maybe Kevin Beckman. ^[3]

On March 13, 2016, Andrew Shaffer revealed he turned in copy edits last week. ^[4]

On March 25, 2016, it was announced a hardcover edition will be released in the United Kingdom through Ebury Publishing. ^[5]

On June 9, 2016, Andrew Shaffer revealed the copies seen in the movie are prop books because he was working on the book simultaneous to filming. Some of the chapter titles do sync up but Shaffer was not sure if they'll make it into the final cut of the movie. ^[6]

On June 10, 2016, an old card catalog from the New York City Public Library of "Ghosts from Our Past" was teased showing it was published in 1994. 109452 (2) and 109679 (3) were destroyed but not 109434. A synopsis reads, "A Glimpse into the Unknown: A Journey into a Portal; Catching Sight of the Other Dimension: Discovering the Undiscoverable: A Curiosity Piqued and Peaked." ^[7] The Windy City Ghostbusters showed off an advance copy of "Ghosts From Our Past" and other Ghostbusters merchandise on Fox 32 Chicago TV. ^[8]

On July 1, 2016, Andrew Shaffer confirmed he was given early drafts of the movie's script like the writers of the two novelizations. He was given leeway but did he did get notes from Paul Feig and Katie Dippold on drafts of Ghosts from Our Past. Shaffer starting writing last summer, a month before filming started, and drafts were passed back and forth between Sony, Dippold and Feig, and Ghost Corps. Final edits wrapped up in Spring 2016. Shaffer admits half the work that went into the book was in the research into the paranormal and advanced physics and then finding a halfway believable way of connecting the two. ^[9] ^[10]

On July 4, 2016, an excerpt from the Audiobook, featuring Erin's childhood experience with a ghost, was released. ^[11]

On July 17, 2016, an extended excerpt was released. It included Martin Heiss' forward. ^[12]

On July 18, 2016, it was confirmed the "original" cover seen in the movie will be available online at some point for fans to download. ^[13]

Behind the Scenes[]

For the longest time, Andrew Shaffer wanted to write a version of Tobin's Spirit Guide. After writing a Sharknado tie-in book for Penguin Random House, Shaffer was asked if there was anything else he wanted to write. He immediately mentioned Tobin's Spirit Guide but his editor turned him down citing Ghostbusters was a dead franchise and the 30th anniversary had already passed. About a year later, Shaffer got a call from his editor about doing a Ghostbusters tie-in. Shaffer was informed someone else was working on a Tobin's Spirit Guide and the movie was a reboot.^[14]^[15] Shaffer got a draft of the screenplay and mocked up a proposal. It was greenlit and Shaffer was asked to write some example sections. He wrote some chapters and sent them. A couple weeks later, Shaffer got notes from Paul Feig and Katie Dippold explaining what "Ghosts From Our Past" was about and how it differed from Tobin's Spirit Guide. Shaffer wrote the book over six months from July 2015 to January 2016. From July 2015 to the end of principal photography, Shaffer had access to multiple drafts of the screenplay through a secure system. He spent the first one to two months doing research then essentially wrote it back to front.^[16] Shaffer looked at stacks of books on the paranormal and science in an attempt to find a plausible way to bridge them together for the book.^[17]^[18] Feig didn't want to reuse any of the faux books from the original movie universe, so Shaffer had to create an entirely new set of reference guides along the lines of Tobin's. Shaffer created Archibald Dutton, Vernon Heiss, and Maureen Kemp for the book. Everyone wanted to keep the classification system fairly standard across the various universes. Shaffer primarily looked at the West End Games RPG for reference.^[19]^[20] He also had to expand a page or so about Erin and Abby's childhood into under 100 pages.^[21] Shaffer wrote the backstory chapters and sent a rough draft to Sony. Feig read and critiqued the chapters, saying "Erin wouldn't do this," or "Abby would do this," and provided quite detailed notes.^[22] At first, he was told Leslie Jones was playing Abby and Melissa McCarthy was playing Patty. He didn't get the memo they switched roles until later.^[23]^[24] Shaffer looked at James Maxwell's notes for the movie and cribbed it for Holtzmann's section.^[25] Maxwell read a couple of sections and offered corrections on the science. Dan Aykroyd read an early draft of the book and gave it his approval.^[26] The order of some chapters were changed during the revision stage.^[27]

Also See[]

Errors[]

Andrew Shaffer forgot to remove a joke on page 17 about Heiss being a ghost and writing the forward. During post-production of the movie, the fate of Heiss was changed to be more vague than definitive. Shaffer changed the forward to be more reflective of Heiss still being alive but forgot about page 17.
The Grettta DeMille incident was mistakenly dated as 1985 on page 24 when it should have been 1982.
Due to a production error, the image for the Mercado Hotel (Figure 10.2) was omitted from page 146 but was still mentioned.

Trivia[]

Andrew Shaffer threw in some nods to Feig's childhood in Michigan to pander to but Shaffer got notes back on what details he got wrong.^[28]
The section about Abby's time in the woods was much longer but it went to 'weird places' and was edited down.^[29]
For Abby and Erin's college years, Shaffer threw in some of his experiences like a professor who threw his $200 textbook away after flipping through it.^[30]
Originally, Shaffer wanted to include a lot of references to the animated series but he ended stripping them out so the book could stand on its own.^[31]
The history section was inspired by the format of "A History of Ghosts" by Dan Aykroyd's father.^[32]
In conjunction with the release of the book, "fake" product pages of other fictional books mentioned in Ghosts from Our Past were created on the Good Reads website with cover images and more information:
- "The Oxford Companion to the Necronomicon"
- "The Heiss Guide to Frightful Entities"
- "The Heiss Guide to Frightful Funguses"
- "Fiends with Benefits: True Stories of Paranormal Love "
- "Corporeal Apparitions of the Northeastern United States"
- "It's Your Afterlife: A Handbook for Lost Souls"
- "Systema Unnaturae"
- "The Great Book of Other Realms"
- "Parapsychology; or, The Science of Psychical Phenomena"
- "I Came Back Haunted: Near-Death Experiences"
- "The Big Book of Blasphemy"
- "An Introduction to Ritual Summoning"
- "Kemp's Spectral Field Guide"
On page 1, the following are quoted for the praise section:
- Martin Heiss
- Dean Harold Filmore from Columbia University
- Mayor Bradley
- Maureen Kemp, author of Kemp's Spectral Field Guide
On page 2, A Glimpse into the Unknown: A Journey into a Portal; Catching Sight of the Other Dimension: Discovering the Undiscoverable: A Curiosity Piqued and Peaked. is referenced under other works by Erin and Abby.
On page 5, British psychic researcher and author Harry Price is quoted and answered by the writers.^[33]
On page 11, the following are mentioned:
- The Tonight Show
- Uri Geller, an Israeli illusionist, magician, television personality, and alleged psychic
- James Randi, a magician and debunker
- The 1973 episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson where Geller failed to bend a spoon with his supposed psychic powers.
- Jimmy Fallon, the host of the The Tonight Show who took over in 2014.
On page 12, the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute is mentioned.
On page 15, the following are mentioned:
- Princeton University
- Lilith Fair, a traveling music festival that started in 1997.
- Ann Arbor, a city in Michigan and home to the University of Michigan.
- University of Michigan
On page 16, the following are mentioned:
- The X-Files and its lead characters Agents Mulder and Scully
- George Lucas
On page 17, the following are mentioned:
- Dr. Jillian Holtzmann
- Patty Tolan
- Kevin Beckman
- Galileo Galilei
- Jason Hawes and the Atlantic Paranormal Society, also known as a star and co-producer of "Ghost Hunters".
- Carl Sagan, a famous American astrophysicist and cosmologist known for his research into extraterrestrial life.
On page 21, the following are mentioned:
- Stephen Hawking, a famous American theoretical physicist and cosmologist.
- Battle Creek, Michigan
- Cereal City, the nickname for Battle Creek after W.K. Kellogg and C.W. Post.
- Apple Jacks
- Fruity Pebbles
- Chia Pet
On page 24, the following are mentioned:
- "101 Dalmatians"
- Cruella de Vil, the villain of "101 Dalamations"
- Devil's Night
- Detroit's Motor City nickname
On page 25, the detergent brand Tide is mentioned.
Pages 24 to 31 details the back story of Erin's "Ghost Girl" nickname and story about the ghost she saw when she was a child. They were mentioned in Chapter 8 of the movie.
On page 30, Dr. Seuss is mentioned.
On page 31, Carl Sagan and his book "Cosmos" are mentioned.
On page 33, the following are mentioned:
- Marie Curie and her 1903 Nobel Prize are mentioned.
- The Higgs Boson
- Neanderthals
On page 34, the following are mentioned:
- Leptons
- Quarks
- Hyperkalemia
- Leprechauns
- Lucky Charms
- General Mills
On page 35, Abby mentions her imaginary dachshund Zorp. This is a nod to the television series "Parks and Recreation." Zorp the Surveyor was a 28-foot tall lizard god worshiped by the Reasonabilist cult.
On page 36, the following are mentioned:
- McDonald's
- Sally Ride
- Rochester
- Amelia Earhart
- Lucky Charms
- Cheerios
On page 38, the following are mentioned:
- Lucky Charms
- Tulane University
- FDA
On page 39, the Post-it Note is mentioned.
On page 40, the following are mentioned:
- Girl Scouts
- Astral Projection
Page 43-44 mentions how Abby and Erin were outcasts in high school. This came up in Chapter 8 of the movie.
On page 44, the following are mentioned:
- Ghost Club
- Society for Psychical Research
Page 45-46 provides the back story for Erin and Abby's science fair rap song mentioned in Chapter 8 of the movie.
On page 46, Patrick Swayze is mentioned in Erin and Abby's song.
On page 48, the following are mentioned:
- The X-Files
- The series premiere of X-Files on September 10, 1993.
- Dana Scully and Gillian Anderson
- Fox Mulder and David Duchovny
On page 50, the New York Institute of Technology is mentioned.
On page 52, the description of Erin looking to the refrigerator is a nod to when Dana Barrett saw the Temple of Gozer in the first movie and Peter Venkman's description of the junk food in it.
On page 52, the following are mentioned:
- Ronald Reagan
- Scientific American
On page 53, the EVP is the tagline "The Truth is Out There" from The X-Files.
On page 57, Abby's line about only 4% of the matter in the universe being identified was also stated in the movie a few times.
On page 57, the following are mentioned:
- Dark matter
- Dark energy
- Kemp's Spectral Field Guide
On page 59, the following are mentioned:
- Athens
- Athenodorus, a Greek philopsopher.
On page 60, the following are mentioned:
- Pliny the Younger
- Athenodorus
- "The Net", 1995 cyber thriller movie starring Sandra Bullock.
- Zima, a carbonated alcoholic beverage made and distributed by the Coors Brewing.
- Queen Elizabeth
- William James, an American philosopher and psychologist known for being the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States of America.
On page 61, the following are mentioned:
- Maureen Kemp and Kemp's Spectral Field Guide
- Oral tradition of passing knowledge to the next generation.
- Different names for ghosts: apparition, appearance, bogey, essence, gidim, nightshade, phantasm, phantasma, phantom, phenomenon, presence, shade, shadow, sight, specter, spirit, spook, spud, vision, and wraith.
  - Spud is a nod to Slimer.
On page 62, the following are mentioned:
- Witch of Endor, a woman King Saul consulted to summon the spirit of prophet Samuel in Chapter 28 of the First Book of Samuel.
- King Saul
- The prophet Samuel
- Hugh Hefner
- The Devil
- Elysium, a realm in the Greek underworld where gods, heroes and otherwise righteous live a blessed afterlife.
- Fields of Punishment, a realm in the Greek underworld.
- Phaedo, one of the best-known dialogues of Plato that included the theme that the soul was immortal.
- Plato
On page 63, the following are mentioned:
- Pliny the Younger
- Black Death
- Gregory the Great, the Pope from September 3, 590 to March 12, 604 AD.
- Saint Augustine, a Christian philospher.
- Leprechauns
Louis Lavatar is covered from pages 63-64.
Kate and Margaret Fox and their "ghost" Mr. Splitfoot are covered from page 64-66.
Morse Code is mentioned on page 64.
On page 66, the following are mentioned:
- Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology and influenced many fields of research.
- Society for Psychical Research
Page 67 goes over techniques of mediums, including apport, automatic writing, control, direct voice phenomena, direct writing, ectoplasm, and xenoglossy.
On page 68, the following are mentioned:
- Gallup survey
- Hollis, Queens, New York
Pages 71 to 72 covers the Ghost Club.
On page 71, the following are mentioned
- Arthur Conan Doyle, a British writer best known for Sherlock Holmes.
- Charles Babbage, an English polymath known as the father of the first computer.
- W.B. Yeats, a 20th century Irish poet.
On page 72, the following are mentioned:
- Ladies Dining Society, a private women's dining and discussion club based at Cambridge University founded in 1890.
- Cambridge University.
- Xerox
On page 72, the (offensive) Ghost Club logo is a nod to the No Ghost logo.
Henry and Elanor Sidgwick and their Society for Psychical Research are covered on pages 73-74.
On page 73, the following are also mentioned:
- London Dialectical Society, a 19th century British professional association that investigated the claims of spiritualism.
- Phasmatological Society, an Oxford organization that investigated paranormal phenomena in the 19th century.
- Newnham, a suburb of Cambridge.
William James are covered on pages 74-75.
On page 74, the following are also mentioned:
- Harvard
- "The Principles of Psychology" (1890), a book by William James about his four methods: stream of consciousness, emotion, habit, and will.
- American Society of Psychical Research
- Leonora Piper, a trance medium investigated in the early 20th century.
Duncan MacDougall is covered on pages 75-76.
On page 75, the following are also mentioned:
- Abraham Lincoln
- The American Magazine, an early 20th century periodical publication.
- MacDougall's 21 grams hypothesis
Marie and Pierre Curie are covered on pages 76-79.
On page 76, the following are also mentioned:
- New York Times
- Sir J.J. Thomson, an English physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery and identification of the electron.
- Society for Psychical Research
- William Crookes, a British chemist and physicist known for his work in spectroscopy.
- Nobel Prize
- Charles Richet, a French physiologist who pioneered work in immunology.
- The Curies's shared win of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
- Eusapia Palladino, an Italian Spiritualist physical medium.
- Paris
On page 77, Louis Georges Gouy, a French physicist, is mentioned.
On page 78, the University of Paris is mentioned.
Harry Houdini is covered on page 79.
On page 79, the following are also mentioned:
- Curie's second Nobel Prize
- The Christian Register, a leading American Unitarian weekly magazine.
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- Bess Houdini
- Newsweek
Harry Price and Kathleen M. Goldney are covered on pages 80 to 82.
On page 82, the following are also mentioned:
- Society of Psychical Research
- Harry Houdini
- "Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter", one of Harry Price's works
- National Laboratory of Psychical Research
- Ghost Club
- Rosemary Guiley and "The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits"
There is a nod to Dean Yeager's line about Peter's theories being the worst kind of popular tripe, sloppy methods, and highly questionable conclusions on page 80.
On page 81, the following are also mentioned:
- Society of Psychical Research
- Nandor Fodor and "An Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science"
- Tomorrow, an American magazine that specialized in parapsychology and mystical subjects.
J.B. and Louise Rhine are covered on pages 82-83.
On page 82, the following are also mentioned:
- Harry Price
- Society of Psychical Research
- Parapsychology Laboratory
- Duke University
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- The American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Psychology Today
- U.S. News & Report
On page 83, the following are mentioned:
- Parapsychology Laboratory
- Duke University
- Einstein and his general theory of relativity
- William James
- Victor J. Stenger and "Physics and Psychics"
On page 85, the following are mentioned:
- Law of Conservation of Mass
- Quantum Mechanics
On page 86, the following are mentioned:
- Nature, a British scientific journal.
- Standard Model of physics
- Quarks
- Leptons
- Gluons
- Photons
- Z bosons
- W bosons
- Higgs
On page 87, the following are mentioned:
- Lagrangian
- Euler-Lagrange limiting equation
On page 88, the following are mentioned:
- Duncan MacDougall
- Psychokinetic Enegy
- Lagrangian
- Dark matter and dark energy
- Hadron collider
- P.K.E. Meter
- Standard Model particles
- Plato
- Near death experiences
On page 89, the following are mentioned:
- Einstein's special theory of relativity
- Fourth dimension of time
- Superstring theory
- Multiverse theory
- The other side, spirit world, afterlife, unseen world, netherworld, Elysium, the Heavens
- The Durable but Not Impenetrable Barrier
- Black hole
On page 90, the following are mentioned:
- Raquel Welch, an American actress and singer.
- Shawshank State Prison, the location of "Shawshank Redemption"
- Andy Dufresne, a character in "Shawshank Redemption"
- Mexico, the finale of "Shawshank Redemption"
- Morgan Freeman, a star in "Shawshank Redemption"
- "Shawshank Redemption", a 1994 drama film.
On page 91, the following are mentioned:
- Ley lines
- Peru
- China
- Stanford University
- New York
- London
On page 92, the following are mentioned:
- Benjamin Franklin
- Nicholas Cage, an American actor.
- Halloween
- New Year's Eve
- P.K.E.
- Standard Model particles
- Ectoplasm
- Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish Lutheran theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic best known for his book on the afterlife, "Heaven and Hell."
On page 93, the following are mentioned:
- Ectoplasm
- Maureen Kemp
On page 94, the following are mentioned:
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a prominent American humanist.
- Arthur Conan Doyle,
- The Virgin Mary
On page 98, the following are mentioned:
- Haslingden, a town in Rossendale, Lancashire, England.
- New College at Hackney
- London
Archibald Dutton's "Systema Unnaturae" is a nod to "Systema Naturae" that influenced biological classification.
On page 99, the following are mentioned:
- King George III
- Parliament
- Haslingden
- Roaring Twenties
- Wheaties
On page 100, the following are mentioned:
- Jersey City
- Louis Armstrong, an American trumpeter known for influencing jazz.
- Harlem
- American Society of Psychical Research
On page 101, the following are mentioned:
- Mount Hood, a famous stratovolcano in northern Oregon.
- Great Depression
Maureen Kemp and Kemp's Spectral Field Guide is covered on pages 102-121.
On page 102, the following are also mentioned:
- Martin Heiss
- Scotland
- North Side, Chicago
- Newsweek
- Loch Ness
On page 105, the following are mentioned:
- Michael Jackson
- "Thriller"
- MTV
On page 106, the following are mentioned:
- Peter Haining and "A Dictionary of Ghosts"
- Will-o'-the-wisp
On page 107, the following are mentioned:
- Will-o'-the-wisp
- Direct voice phenomena
The entities on pages 106 to 119 were illustrated by Steve Salerno.^[34]
On page 108, the following are mentioned:
- Joseph Glanvill and "Saducismus Triumphatus"
On page 109, the following are mentioned:
- Direct voice phenomena
- Eusapia Palladino
- The Curies
- Ouija boards
On page 110, the following are mentioned:
- Isle of Man
- Newstead Abbey, a former priory in Nottinghamshire, England best known as the ancestral home of Lord Byron.
On page 111, the following are mentioned:
- Blue Man, a type of Kelpie known for causing storms.
- Blue Man Group, a famous performance company.
- Arundel Castle, a medieval castle in West Sussex.
- Sussex, England
On page 112, the following are mentioned:
- Arthur Conan Doyle
On page 113, the following are mentioned:
- John Belushi
  - Belushi's ghost was intended as a nod to Ray's Spirit Guide.^[35]
- "The Blues Brothers"
- Jake Blues, the character Belushi portrayed in "The Blues Brothers"
- Chateau Marmont, a Los Angeles hotel where Belushi died of a drug overdose on March 5, 1982.
- Hollywood
- Abraham Lincoln
- White House
- Leonora Piper
- Ford's Theatre, the Washington D.C. theater where President Lincoln was assassinated.
- P.K.E.
On page 115, the following are mentioned:
- Sussex, England
- William the Conqueror
- National Battlefield Park
- Richmond, Virginia
- Civil War
- "Sad and Lonely"
On page 116, the following are mentioned:
- Kelpies
- Peter Haining
- Scotland
- Celtic Magazine
On page 117, the following are mentioned:
- The Devil
- "A Dictionary of Ghosts"
- Appalachia, the cultural region spanning southern New York to northern Georgia and Alabama.
- Cthulhu
On page 118, the following are mentioned:
- Cthulhu
- H.P. Lovecraft
- Babylon
- The Cathulhu name from The Real Ghostbusters.
On page 119, the following are mentioned:
- Apshai is originally from The Real Ghostbusters.
- "Book of the Dead"
- Ra
- Krampus, who had a cameo in the IDW Comics.
On page 120, the following are mentioned:
- Slimer is alluded to by his classification.
- Gretta DeMille
On page 125, the following are mentioned:
- Harry Price
- Borley Rectory, a Victorian home known as "the most haunted house in England."
On page 128, Erin's Awesome Mix Vol. 1 mixtape is a nod to the soundtrack of the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, Awesome Mix Vol. 1.
On page 128, the following are mentioned:
- Attila von Szalay, an American photographer connected to early studies in EVP.
On page 129, the following are mentioned:
- EVP
- PETA
On page 129, the raccoon noted as the "Natural Enemy of the Ghost Hunter" was a nod to "Parks and Recreation" and a subtle homage to Katie Dippold, who wrote for the TV series.^[36]
On page 130, the following are mentioned:
- Spencer's, a defunct department store chain in British Columbia, Canada.
- Predator, the star of an alien movie franchise with 20th Century Fox.
- American Journal of Ophthalmology
On page 132, the following are mentioned:
- Hans Holzer, an American paranormal researcher and author.
- Elliott O'Donnell, an author known primarily for his books about ghosts.
- P.K.E.
Pages 135-139 is "by" Jillian Holtzmann.
On page 135, the following are mentioned:
- Ghost Jumpers
- P.K.E.
- Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science
- P.K.E. Meter
On page 136, the following are mentioned:
- Positively charged ectoplasm
- Ghost trap
- Uncle Ben's motto "With great power comes great responsibility" from the Spider-Man comics.
On page 137, the following are mentioned:
- Americium-25
- Crossing the streams
On page 138, the following are mentioned:
- P.K.E.
On page 139, the following are mentioned:
- Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science
- CERN
- Holtzmann alludes to Erin kissing the Trap that held Mayhem in Chapter 10.
On page 141, the following are mentioned:
- Ghost Club
- Daily Telegraph
- Society of Psychical Research
On page 142, the following are mentioned:
- Aldridge Mansion Museum
- Belcourt Castle in Newport, Rhode Island
- Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, Missouri
- Moore House in Villisca, Iowa
- Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana
- The White House in Washington D.C.
- Winchester Mansion in San Jose, California.
- Bobby Mackey's Music World in Wilder, Kentucky
- Lincoln Theater in Decatur, Illinois
- Metropolitan Opera House in New York, New York
- Stonebrook Theatre in New York New York
On page 143, the following are mentioned:
- Castle Hill Inn in Newport, Rhode Island
- Jerome Grand Hotel in Jerome, Arizona
- The Mercado Hotel in New York, New York
- Silver Queen Hotel in Virginia City, Nevada
- The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado
- The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas
- Gettysburg in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
- National Battlefield Park in Richmond, Virginia
- Alcatraz in San Francisco, California
- Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- West Georgia Correctional Facility in Newnan, Georgia
- Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky
- Bellevue Hospital in New York, New York
- Danvers State Hospital in Danvers Massachusetts
On page 144, the following are mentioned:
- Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, Massachusetts
- Rolling Hills Asylum in Bethany, New York
- Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky
- Bachelor's Grove Cemetery in Midlothian, Illinois
- Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona
- Howard Street Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts
- St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans, Louisiana
- Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore, Maryland
- Boston, Massachusetts
- Charleston, South Carolina
- Chicago, Illinois
- Fort Lauderdale, Florida
- Portland, Oregon
- San Antonio, Texas
- San Francisco, California
- Savannah, Georgia
- Washington D.C.
- Josephine Bandette
- Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Harvard University Press
- "The Occult Encyclopaedia: In Thirteen Volumes"
On page 145, the following are mentioned:
- Oprah
- Jonathan Franzen, an American writer and novelist.
- Leo Tolstoy, a famous Russian writer.
- Aldridge Mansion Museum
- Gertrude Aldridge
On page 146, the following are mentioned:
- Gertrude Aldridge
- Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado
- Stephen King
- "The Shining"
- F.O. and Flora Stanley
- Borley Rectory in Borley, Essex
- Harry Price
- 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York
- Ronald DeFeo, Jr.
- Hans Holzer
- The Mercado
On page 147, the following are mentioned:
- Cashen's Gap in Dalby, Isle of Man
- Gef, the Talking Mongoose.
- Harry Price
- James Irving, an American illustrator.
On page 150, the following are mentioned:
- "Law & Order"
- "NYPD Blue"
- Society of Psychical Research
- Land of Nod, where Cain was exiled to by God after he murdered his brother Abel.
On page 151, the following are mentioned:
- Hollis, Queens
On page 152, the following are mentioned:
- Harry Price
- Borley Rectory
- Snoop Doggy Dogg
On page 153, the following are mentioned:
- Gretta
- Harry Price
On page 154, the following are mentioned:
- Harry Price
- Borley Rectory
On page 155, the following are mentioned:
- Tylenol
- Utu the Mesopotamian sun god
- Temple of Sippar, an ancient Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates river.
- Nikola Tesla
On page 156, the following are mentioned:
- Thomas Edison
- Hi-C
- Ouija boards
On page 157, the following are mentioned:
- Good Housekeeping
On page 159, the following are mentioned:
- The Barrier
- Detroit Zoo
- Ley Lines
On page 160, the following are mentioned:
- Ley lines
- Interdimensional crossrip
- The Barrier
- Witchcraft Act of 1604, which made conjuration, witchcraft, and dealing with evil and wicked spirits a felony offense punishable by death by hanging without benefit of clergy.
On page 161, the following are mentioned:
- Medium
- Shaman
- Necromancer
- Ouija board
On page 162, the following are mentioned:
- Seances
- Ouija boards
- Fu Ji
- Hasbro
On page 163, the following are mentioned:
- Toys "R" Us
- Thomas Edison
- New York Times
- Scientific American
On page 164, the following are mentioned:
- EVP
- Thomas Edison
On page 166, the following are mentioned:
- Rowan North
On page 167, the following are mentioned:
- Margaret Mead
On page 169, the following are mentioned:
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Benjamin Franklin
- Michael Faraday
- Charles Darwin
- Mary Somerville, a Scottish science writer and polymath.
- Scientific Method
On page 170, the following are mentioned:
- Einstein and his theories on the photoelectric effect and special relativity
On page 173, the following are mentioned:
- Patrick Swayze
- Chelsea
- Patty
- Holtzmann
On page 174, the following are mentioned:
- Patrick Swayze
- "Road House"
On page 177, the following are mentioned:
- Trap
- P.K.E. Meter
- Proton Pack
- Nandor Fodor and "Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science"
- Rosemary Ellen Guiley and "The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits"
- Maureen Kemp and Kemp's Spectral Field Guide
On page 179, the following are mentioned:
- Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science
- P.K.E. Meter
On page 180, the following are mentioned:
- Craigslist
- Scotland
- Faery dog, or Cù-sìth
- Bering Straight
The answer to Question 4 alludes to the Headless Horseman.
Kemp's Spectral Classification Table from the Spectral Field Guide is on page 182-183.
On page 191, the following are mentioned:
- Fox Mulder
On page 192, the following are mentioned:
- Paula Deen, a TV personality and cooking show host.
On page 193 the following are mentioned:
- Magic 8 Ball
- Papa John's, the pizza chain that had a promotional tie in with the 2016 movie.
On page 194, the following are mentioned:
- Flying Dutchman
- Ford Tempo, a car in production from 1984-1994.
- "The X-Files"
On page 195, the following are mentioned:
- A Glimpse Into the Unknown
On page 196, the following are mentioned:
- Duke University
- Parapsychology Laboratory
- Facebook
- Snapchat
On page 199, the following are mentioned:
- William Mumler, an American spirit photographer.
- Abraham Lincoln
- Mary Todd
- Fox sisters
On page 200, the following are mentioned:
- Star Trek
- Einstein and special relativity
On page 215, the following are mentioned:
- Paul Feig
- Katie Dippold
- Cira Sims
- Virginia King
- Ivan Reitman
- Eric Reich
- Ghost Corps
- Amy Pascal
- Matt Inman
- James Maxwell
- Brandi Bowles
- Kristen Wiig
- Melissa McCarthy
- Kate McKinnon
- Leslie Jones
- Bill Murray
- Chris Hemsworth
- Dan Aykroyd
- Harold Ramis
On page 212, the "Handbook for the Recently Deceased" from the movie "Beetlejuice" is listed in the bibliography section.
On page 219, the following are mentioned:
- Columbia University
- Scientific American
- Nature
- Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science
- "The X-Files"
- "Blossom"
- New York Times
- "How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters"
- American Society for Psychical Research
- Horror Writers Association
On page 221-222, the following are mentioned:
- "Titanic"
- Leonardo DiCaprio/Jack Dawson
On page 222, the following are mentioned:
- The Barrier
- Henry Wadsworth Langfellow, an American poet and educator.
- Quantum Entanglement Theory
On page 19 of Ghostbusters International #8, in panel 1, on the right of Ray Stantz's first word balloon is a copy of Ghosts From Our Past.
On page 20 of Ghostbusters 101 #1, the right page of the book Abby is looking at is page 48 from Three Rivers Press' "Ghosts From Our Past" that talks about when "X-Files" premiered during Abby and Erin's undergraduate years.
On page 5 of Ghostbusters 101 #2:
- In panel 3, there are four papers posted up.
  - Top Left: Kemp's Spectral Classification Index from pages 182-183
  - Bottom Right: The end of the Zugspitze Terror passage and the Hastings Foundation passage and image from page 115.
  - Top Right: When Abby and Erin talk about when "X-Files" premiered on television on page 48.
  - Far Right: Spectral Field Theory from page 87.

External Links[]

Ghosts from Our Past: Both Literally and Figuratively - Ghostbusters Book (Official Facebook Page)
Penguin Random House product page
Penguin Random House U.K. product page
Ghosts From Our Past website
List of where to purchase at Ghosts From Our Past website

References[]

↑ Ghosts from Our Past: Both Literally and Figuratively: The Study of the Paranormal page on Amazon retrieved 01/10/16
↑ andrewtshaffer Tweet 3/5/16
↑ Ghosts From Our Past Facebook 3/10/16
↑ Ghosts From Our Past Facebook 3/13/16
↑ Ghosts From Our Past Facebook 3/25/16
↑ Ghosts From Out Past Facebook Andrew Shaffer reply 6/9/16
↑ Ghosts From Our Past Facebook 6/10/16
↑ Ghosts From Our Past Facebook 6/10/16
↑ Andrew Shaffer reply #1 reddit "WTF: The Ghostbusters 2016 novelization and the in-movie tie-in book "Ghosts from Our Past" have different continuities" 7/1/16
↑ Andrew Shaffer reply #2 reddit "WTF: The Ghostbusters 2016 novelization and the in-movie tie-in book "Ghosts from Our Past" have different continuities" 7/1/16
↑ Ghosts from Our Past Facebook 7/4/16
↑ Ghosts from Our Past Facebook 7/17/16
↑ Ghosts From Our Past Facebook reply 7/18/16
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:23:26-1:24:10 Andrew Shaffer says: "Tobin's Spirit Guide. I mean, one of the first books I remember having as a kid was the Ghostbusters Training Manual and I just adored that thing even though it was like 20 pages long and it was just basically a sticker book. It was something that I just adored and I, you know, over the years, I was like, 'Why isn't there never something like this for older readers?' I never really grew out of that book. There was nothing else. You could hit the role playing game but uh I don't have enough friends that aren't into playing this role playing game with."
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:24:18-1:25:54 Andrew Shaffer says: "So that was my first idea and that was a long gestating idea. I was like, 'If I ever get a chance to do something, I was like we need to bring this to life. We need to bring this to life.' And I wrote a book, How to Survive a Sharknado made for Penguin Random House and it was about how to survive a Sharknado and 39 other--other Sy Fi Channel movie monsters and it was actually an in-world book that appeared onscreen in Sharknado 2. It was written by Tara Reid's character, April Wexler. So I was like I had a little bit of experience doing a tie-in in-world book and my editor at Penguin Random House asked if there was anything else you to work on and I said Ghostbusters. He said well, Ghostbusters is dead. Y'know, it's a dead franchise. You probably heard this a million times before but you know without a new movie, without an anniversary date - we just passed the anniversary date 30 years without any of this stuff coming out it's dead and then about a year later he gives me a call and says, 'Hey, they're actually doing this uh new movie, are you interested?' I was absolutely. I want to do Tobin's Spirit Guide. Let's do it. And then it was like well, someone else is actually doing Tobin's Spirit Guide and the new movie's reboot. And so immediately, I go uhhh..."
↑ Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "Ghosts from Our Past took over my life for about six full months, beginning last July. The first month or two were spent doing research on the paranormal and science, and trying to figure out a way to connect them in the book that wasn’t too ludicrous. From there, I wrote the book pretty much front to back, although the order of some chapters was switched around during revisions. Sony provided me with multiple drafts of the screenplay, from July 2015 through the end of principle filming. I don't recall if they were dated—since they were accessed through a secure system, I don't have copies of them available any longer."
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:28:02-1:29:26 Andrew Shaffer says: "Just the screenplay at first and then I did a sort of mock up of, y'know, proposal of what I would do with this, what I would do with this book and sent it in. He said great let's do this and just write some more examples. A couple sample chapters and then as soon as I turned in those sample chapters and the rest of the proposal, we got notes a couple weeks later back from Paul Feig and Katie Dippold and here's what we--the direction--we want to go in but uh we need to change -- my idea at first was to do more along the lines of a Tobin's Spirit Guide and they're like 'No, this is what the book is in the world and they're not really paranormal investigators, start off as scientists' So it took a little bit of a different angle my take was so they were like okay, 'Let's work this back up. And really work the science and physics theme throughout the book. So it really is looking at the, y'know, this new world throught these characters, Erin Gilbert and Abby Yates' eyes. And I really had to get in there."
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:30:33-1:30:52 Andrew Shaffer says: "So I had two stacks of books on my desk. One was all paranormal books and the other was all science books. And I had to find a way to sort of connect those two words um and y'know without it seems -- it becomes plausible."
↑ Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "There was never any debate about it—Paul Feig didn't want to reuse any of the faux books from the original universe, so I had to create an entirely new set of reference guides along the lines of Tobin's. There were one or two mentions of fictional reference books or authors in the script that didn't end up in the final movie, but the ones in the book (Archibald Dutton, Vernon Heiss, and Maureen Kemp) were ones I created just for Ghosts from Our Past."
↑ Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "Everyone wanted to keep the classification system fairly standard across the various universes, so there wasn't much debate there—not sure if this was Paul's direction or Ghost Corps. I primarily looked at the West End Games RPG, because that's what aligned the best with the original films. (The Real and Extreme systems were quite different.) The Kemp system in Ghosts from Our Past lines up with what's used in Insight Editions' new Tobin's Spirit Guide pretty well, I think."
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:29:28-1:29:55 Andrew Shaffer says: "Now like you said, what else was I given? Not much beyond their notes so a lot of that was left to me to fill in the blanks and all I had was the script and I, y'know, was hoping and praying that they didn't -- they do a lot of ad lib on Paul Feig movies -- and if they didn't ad lib something on set, y'know 'When I was a kid'..."
↑ Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "No character bible, though. Using what was in the script, I wrote the backstory chapters and sent off a rough draft to Sony. Paul read and critiqued the chapters, saying "Erin wouldn't do this," or "Abby would do this," etc.—quite detailed notes. Together, I think we finally got to the heart of the characters."
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:35:15-1:35:31 Andrew Shaffer says: "In the screenplay, there's about -- I don't know -- maybe a page or so about their childhood. We didn't really have a lot on their childhood. 'Could you just expand on that to 80 pages, that'd be great'."
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:36:00-1:36:28 Andrew Shaffer says: "And actually what had happened was, um, when I originally got the script, I was told Abby Yates would be played by Leslie Jones I believe and Patty Tolan was Melissa McCarthy which is something Paul had alluded to in interviews. And, uh, yeah, apparently I for whatever reason I didn't get the memo they switched up so I was trying to write them in what I imagined the voices and actresses would be."
↑ Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "Holtzmann's section was mostly cribbed from MIT physicist James Maxwell's notes."
↑ Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "James Maxwell read a couple of sections for us, and offered corrections. Dan Aykroyd read an early draft of the book and gave it the thumbs-up. He knows his stuff, so I breathed a sigh of relief after that."
↑ Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "From there, I wrote the book pretty much front to back, although the order of some chapters was switched around during revisions."
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:37:06-1:37:36 Andrew Shaffer says: "I threw in some nods to his childhood experience and then I threw in, well, he's like from Michigan - like Detroit and Battle Creek references... and it was really pandering to my audience at that point. And I got back and he was like, 'This is wrong. This is wrong. Thing is wrong.' I was like, 'I know nothing. I'm sorry. I'm not from Michigan."
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:58:24-1:58:38 Andrew Shaffer says: "There was an even much longer, extended set longer in the woods scene but it got cut down a bit just because it went to weird places. Um. Yeah."
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:38:29-1:38:54 Andrew Shaffer says: "And then their college years I sort of I can sort of base this a little bit more on my experiences like there's one little anecdote in there about a sort of really swarmy professor who asks them for the textbook, flips through it then tosses it in the trash. I actually had a professor do that. Like a $200 textbook."
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:47:55-1:48:11 Andrew Shaffer says: "When I originally started writing it I wanted to throw in as much - do all these nods to the animated series and really stripped most of that out because I really wanted it to stand on its own."
↑ The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 2:00:05-2:00:18 Andrew Shaffer says: "I did...I did read his father's book and sort of based the structure of this one off that book so again, always be pandering as a writer."
↑ Shaffer, Andrew (2016). Ghosts From Our Past Both Literally & Figuratively: The Study of the Paranormal, p. 5. Three Rivers Press, New York NY USA, ISBN 9781101906002. Line reads: "We do not know what happens when we die, or where we go to, or how we get there. And if we can 'come back'---in the spiritualistic sense---we do not know how that occurs either"
↑ Interview with Andrew ShafferAndrew Shaffer says: "The illustrations were done by Steven Salerno, working off references I provided."
↑ Interview with Andrew ShafferAndrew Shaffer says: "And Belushi's ghost was added as a nod to IDW's comic series, which uses him from time to time."
↑ Interview with Andrew ShafferAndrew Shaffer says: "Casting raccoons as the "Natural Enemies of Ghost Hunters" was a nod to my favorite TV show, Parks and Recreation, where raccoons run amok. It was my subtle way of paying homage to Ghostbusters co-screenwriter Katie Dippold, who wrote for Parks and Recreation."

Gallery[]

Secondary Canon[]

[1] Ghosts from Our Past: Both Literally and Figuratively: The Study of the Paranormal page on Amazon retrieved 01/10/16

[2] rewtshaffer Tweet 3/5/16

[3] Ghosts From Our Past Facebook 3/10/16

[4] Ghosts From Our Past Facebook 3/13/16

[5] Ghosts From Our Past Facebook 3/25/16

[6] Ghosts From Out Past Facebook Andrew Shaffer reply 6/9/16

[7] Ghosts From Our Past Facebook 6/10/16

[8] Ghosts From Our Past Facebook 6/10/16

[9] Andrew Shaffer reply #1 reddit "WTF: The Ghostbusters 2016 novelization and the in-movie tie-in book "Ghosts from Our Past" have different continuities" 7/1/16

[10] Andrew Shaffer reply #2 reddit "WTF: The Ghostbusters 2016 novelization and the in-movie tie-in book "Ghosts from Our Past" have different continuities" 7/1/16

[11] Ghosts from Our Past Facebook 7/4/16

[12] Ghosts from Our Past Facebook 7/17/16

[13] Ghosts From Our Past Facebook reply 7/18/16

[14] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:23:26-1:24:10 Andrew Shaffer says: "Tobin's Spirit Guide. I mean, one of the first books I remember having as a kid was the Ghostbusters Training Manual and I just adored that thing even though it was like 20 pages long and it was just basically a sticker book. It was something that I just adored and I, you know, over the years, I was like, 'Why isn't there never something like this for older readers?' I never really grew out of that book. There was nothing else. You could hit the role playing game but uh I don't have enough friends that aren't into playing this role playing game with."

[15] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:24:18-1:25:54 Andrew Shaffer says: "So that was my first idea and that was a long gestating idea. I was like, 'If I ever get a chance to do something, I was like we need to bring this to life. We need to bring this to life.' And I wrote a book, How to Survive a Sharknado made for Penguin Random House and it was about how to survive a Sharknado and 39 other--other Sy Fi Channel movie monsters and it was actually an in-world book that appeared onscreen in Sharknado 2. It was written by Tara Reid's character, April Wexler. So I was like I had a little bit of experience doing a tie-in in-world book and my editor at Penguin Random House asked if there was anything else you to work on and I said Ghostbusters. He said well, Ghostbusters is dead. Y'know, it's a dead franchise. You probably heard this a million times before but you know without a new movie, without an anniversary date - we just passed the anniversary date 30 years without any of this stuff coming out it's dead and then about a year later he gives me a call and says, 'Hey, they're actually doing this uh new movie, are you interested?' I was absolutely. I want to do Tobin's Spirit Guide. Let's do it. And then it was like well, someone else is actually doing Tobin's Spirit Guide and the new movie's reboot. And so immediately, I go uhhh..."

[16] Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "Ghosts from Our Past took over my life for about six full months, beginning last July. The first month or two were spent doing research on the paranormal and science, and trying to figure out a way to connect them in the book that wasn’t too ludicrous. From there, I wrote the book pretty much front to back, although the order of some chapters was switched around during revisions. Sony provided me with multiple drafts of the screenplay, from July 2015 through the end of principle filming. I don't recall if they were dated—since they were accessed through a secure system, I don't have copies of them available any longer."

[17] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:28:02-1:29:26 Andrew Shaffer says: "Just the screenplay at first and then I did a sort of mock up of, y'know, proposal of what I would do with this, what I would do with this book and sent it in. He said great let's do this and just write some more examples. A couple sample chapters and then as soon as I turned in those sample chapters and the rest of the proposal, we got notes a couple weeks later back from Paul Feig and Katie Dippold and here's what we--the direction--we want to go in but uh we need to change -- my idea at first was to do more along the lines of a Tobin's Spirit Guide and they're like 'No, this is what the book is in the world and they're not really paranormal investigators, start off as scientists' So it took a little bit of a different angle my take was so they were like okay, 'Let's work this back up. And really work the science and physics theme throughout the book. So it really is looking at the, y'know, this new world throught these characters, Erin Gilbert and Abby Yates' eyes. And I really had to get in there."

[18] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:30:33-1:30:52 Andrew Shaffer says: "So I had two stacks of books on my desk. One was all paranormal books and the other was all science books. And I had to find a way to sort of connect those two words um and y'know without it seems -- it becomes plausible."

[19] Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "There was never any debate about it—Paul Feig didn't want to reuse any of the faux books from the original universe, so I had to create an entirely new set of reference guides along the lines of Tobin's. There were one or two mentions of fictional reference books or authors in the script that didn't end up in the final movie, but the ones in the book (Archibald Dutton, Vernon Heiss, and Maureen Kemp) were ones I created just for Ghosts from Our Past."

[20] Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "Everyone wanted to keep the classification system fairly standard across the various universes, so there wasn't much debate there—not sure if this was Paul's direction or Ghost Corps. I primarily looked at the West End Games RPG, because that's what aligned the best with the original films. (The Real and Extreme systems were quite different.) The Kemp system in Ghosts from Our Past lines up with what's used in Insight Editions' new Tobin's Spirit Guide pretty well, I think."

[21] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:29:28-1:29:55 Andrew Shaffer says: "Now like you said, what else was I given? Not much beyond their notes so a lot of that was left to me to fill in the blanks and all I had was the script and I, y'know, was hoping and praying that they didn't -- they do a lot of ad lib on Paul Feig movies -- and if they didn't ad lib something on set, y'know 'When I was a kid'..."

[22] Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "No character bible, though. Using what was in the script, I wrote the backstory chapters and sent off a rough draft to Sony. Paul read and critiqued the chapters, saying "Erin wouldn't do this," or "Abby would do this," etc.—quite detailed notes. Together, I think we finally got to the heart of the characters."

[23] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:35:15-1:35:31 Andrew Shaffer says: "In the screenplay, there's about -- I don't know -- maybe a page or so about their childhood. We didn't really have a lot on their childhood. 'Could you just expand on that to 80 pages, that'd be great'."

[24] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:36:00-1:36:28 Andrew Shaffer says: "And actually what had happened was, um, when I originally got the script, I was told Abby Yates would be played by Leslie Jones I believe and Patty Tolan was Melissa McCarthy which is something Paul had alluded to in interviews. And, uh, yeah, apparently I for whatever reason I didn't get the memo they switched up so I was trying to write them in what I imagined the voices and actresses would be."

[25] Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "Holtzmann's section was mostly cribbed from MIT physicist James Maxwell's notes."

[26] Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "James Maxwell read a couple of sections for us, and offered corrections. Dan Aykroyd read an early draft of the book and gave it the thumbs-up. He knows his stuff, so I breathed a sigh of relief after that."

[27] Interview with Andrew Shaffer Andrew Shaffer says: "From there, I wrote the book pretty much front to back, although the order of some chapters was switched around during revisions."

[28] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:37:06-1:37:36 Andrew Shaffer says: "I threw in some nods to his childhood experience and then I threw in, well, he's like from Michigan - like Detroit and Battle Creek references... and it was really pandering to my audience at that point. And I got back and he was like, 'This is wrong. This is wrong. Thing is wrong.' I was like, 'I know nothing. I'm sorry. I'm not from Michigan."

[29] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:58:24-1:58:38 Andrew Shaffer says: "There was an even much longer, extended set longer in the woods scene but it got cut down a bit just because it went to weird places. Um. Yeah."

[30] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:38:29-1:38:54 Andrew Shaffer says: "And then their college years I sort of I can sort of base this a little bit more on my experiences like there's one little anecdote in there about a sort of really swarmy professor who asks them for the textbook, flips through it then tosses it in the trash. I actually had a professor do that. Like a $200 textbook."

[31] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 1:47:55-1:48:11 Andrew Shaffer says: "When I originally started writing it I wanted to throw in as much - do all these nods to the animated series and really stripped most of that out because I really wanted it to stand on its own."

[32] The Crossrip Podcast 6/26/16 "#227 - Andrew Shaffer/"Ghosts From Our Past" and Erik Burnham "Tobin's Spirit Guide" - June 27, 2016" 2:00:05-2:00:18 Andrew Shaffer says: "I did...I did read his father's book and sort of based the structure of this one off that book so again, always be pandering as a writer."

[33] Shaffer, Andrew (2016). Ghosts From Our Past Both Literally & Figuratively: The Study of the Paranormal, p. 5. Three Rivers Press, New York NY USA, ISBN 9781101906002. Line reads: "We do not know what happens when we die, or where we go to, or how we get there. And if we can 'come back'---in the spiritualistic sense---we do not know how that occurs either"

[34] Interview with Andrew ShafferAndrew Shaffer says: "The illustrations were done by Steven Salerno, working off references I provided."

[35] Interview with Andrew ShafferAndrew Shaffer says: "And Belushi's ghost was added as a nod to IDW's comic series, which uses him from time to time."

[36] Interview with Andrew ShafferAndrew Shaffer says: "Casting raccoons as the "Natural Enemies of Ghost Hunters" was a nod to my favorite TV show, Parks and Recreation, where raccoons run amok. It was my subtle way of paying homage to Ghostbusters co-screenwriter Katie Dippold, who wrote for Parks and Recreation."

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36]

Ghostbusters Wiki